MASS EFFECT 3: The Soldier and the Rose
by Old Sam's Artisanal Fic
Summary: In the aftermath of the events of MASS EFFECT 3, a heartbroken Liara struggles to accept the loss of her beloved Shepard. But then she receives a call which will change everything. Death is not the end. Indeed, with some people, it just makes them angry... FemShep- earthborn war hero, strictly paragon. Saved Ashley, reconciled geth and quarians, cured krogan, chose Destruction.
1. Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

She had done it. That hairy upstart alien from Earth, transformed into a galactic heroine. The Reapers were dead.

They were, for the most part, physically intact, but their processing cores had disintegrated at the molecular level, leaving only the enervated carcases of what had been the doom of civilisations beyond counting. What the Protheans could not do, or the peoples who came before them, this one soldier had done. And united the galaxy in doing so, to boot. What a woman. Courageous. Noble. Sacrificing...

Liara picked up the photo frame on her desk and held it to her body; rocking slowly back and forth, she struggled once again to summon the philosophical attitude to bereavement she knew a sophisticated, long-lived asari was expected to adopt. Nothing worked as it was supposed to. Every sensible platitude she had once accepted without question now proved echoingly empty. Her lover was gone. Her lover had been on the Citadel and had lit the touchpaper. The Citadel had exploded. Shepard was gone. Shepard, her soldier, who had said she was everything to her. Who had offered her however many years she had. She had kept that promise, but it was a hollow gift, for Shepard _had_ no years to give. Liara's one, bright, shining comfort amid the nightmare of the war had been ripped away in its ending, and now she must endure the peace alone.

She looked out of the window, at the sun rising through the shattered buildings of London. Four days. Four and a half, really. Perhaps she would be able to sleep soon.

The picture was recent. Liara had taken it herself, in the Praesidium Commons, when she had realised she had no photographs of Shepard, like the one of her she had seen in Shepard's quarters on board the Normandy. In it she was wearing not armour, but the cloth fatigues human soldiers wore onboard their ships. It was the same morning Therese had cajoled her into facing her father. That had been... good, actually. Awkward, and she had inwardly scolded Shepard for much of the day, but amid all the loss of the past months, it was one thing she didn't have to regret foregoing.

Maybe she _should_ call her father. She was back on Thessia now, rebuilding. Maybe she knew how long Liara would have to feel like this...

Her console beeped- the VI alerting her to a high priority message. Matriarch Tevos, the asari Councillor, had asked Liara be involved in the project to dismantle and re-purpose the remains of the Crucible- a technically and politically sensitive task since, thanks to Shepard's surprising talent for battlefield diplomacy, every major organic civilisation had been involved in the building of the device, and so, now the danger had abated, all seemed determined to bicker over how to carve it up most equitably. Liara had accepted, partly, perhaps, from a sense of duty, but mostly simply because she could not think of a reason not to. She supposed keeping busy was the sensible thing to do, and, amid the optimistic chaos of a new galactic order, her Shadow Broker contacts were busy establishing new lines of espionage and investigation. There would be much work for her there, but not yet. She could make no decisions without data.

She activated the screen- it might be the Councillor, or a dignitary with a grievance, but it might just as likely be a message of sympathy or concern from one of her friends. Or, should she say Shepard's friends? So many of them she had met through the Commander, and now she lacked the confidence to claim them. Small wonder she had spent most of her life alone. Solitude had never bothered her then, yet now, as it beckoned, she found it frightened her.

The message was from Dr Chakwas. That was somewhat of a surprise- they had not spoken very often, and the doctor was tied up in relief efforts. Liara seemed to recall that engineers had restored power to the Citadel's hospital, and evacuated patients and staff were being returned- hardly her area. She scanned the following message:

 _Come directly to the Huerta Memorial Hospital. Do not delay. And prepare yourself._

For what? Had someone been injured? Someone she knew personally? Why not name them? She tried to reach Chakwas' office to ask via video link, but was greeted with an out-of-office message delivered by a VI in the form of a talking med pack. Liara rubbed her eyes. The good doctor's eccentricity seemed to go beyond a lack of communication skills.

Nothing for it but to obey the summons, whatever it proved to mean.


	2. Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

With a groan, Liara T'Soni pulled herself up from the chair she had probably not left for more than an hour at any point in the last two days. Her project clearance allowed her to commandeer one of the Alliance shuttles and its pilot without any questions- just as well, since she had no answers. There might also have been the shadow of Shepard's reputation, as well- the pilot kept very silent, and kept glancing back at her with a kind of hushed awe she found unsettling. The great Shepard's grieving widow.

 _Well, near enough_ , she supposed. It was, at least, a change from the looks she normally received from human males. While she was not, in fact, female, like most asari she somewhat resembled a human woman and it was predominantly the males of species who were drawn to her physically. This would not be a bad thing had not so many of them the subtlety of a krogan.

A month or two before, while attempting to master some basic English, she had been surprised to discover that humans even gendered asari as female grammatically. 'She', rather than 'he' or 'it'. No asari dialect went further than distinguishing animate/inanimate, but, to speak a human language correctly, she had to take into consideration the intimate anatomy of whomever she mentioned. It seemed cumbersome.

As they approached the Citadel, still suspended above Earth, Liara noted the progress already made by human, asari, turian, salarian, volus, batarian, quarian, and rachni engineers working in concert.

Another miracle... Except for those sections physically blown off, all the main structure seemed to have power, and the builders' small craft buzzed over the surface of the station like angry bees.

They docked in a temporary structure connected to the hospital. Liara staggered as she stepped from the shuttle, forgetful of her own fatigue. Bad move- at once a gaggle of nurses surrounded her, scenting a medical emergency. She brushed them off with excuses, and went inside.

Inside she was met by Dr Chakwas and by Lieutenant Vega, no, James- another person she had really only known through Therese. Of their group, she only honestly felt close to Tali, and maybe Garrus on a good day. Both aliens, both now with their own peoples, buried under their own titles and accolades and exciting new challenges. Tali had written. Perhaps she should reply. Unload on someone a little. But what would she say?

Not that she did not have people of her own to speak to. But most of her old friends were better equipped to advise on scientific issues than matters of the heart. Feron was... well, same problem, really. And _yes_ , she knew how to contact her father, but she would probably give her the same flat mantra Liara had accepted unquestioningly as a child- enjoy the time you have with the person, and accept when it ends. Saying such things used to be so easy...

The doctor and the marine said things to her, but she did not hear them, lost in her own thoughts and the subtle delirium of sleep deprivation. Instead she allowed herself to be led, somnambulant, to the back of the ground floor, and the door of a private room.

Amid the noisy hospital chatter and the buzzing in her own ears she distinguished one word from Dr Chakwas' mouth: Shepard. As if by some instinct, all her senses snapped into sharp focus. Up until now, people had avoided saying that name around her. What was going on?

She turned to Vega. She opened her mouth to speak, realising as she did so that she was trembling. "James? What is happening? Why won't anyone explain?"

The bulky marine looked at the doctor, narrowing his eyes. "She doesn't _know_?"

Chakwas shrugged apologetically. "It didn't seem... right to share news like this by extranet message. And I couldn't find the words."

Vega sighed, and whistled through his teeth in a way which was probably not intended to be obnoxious, and perhaps would not have been had Liara managed to sleep at any point that week. He shifted nervously, looking at his feet.

"They... found the commander, Liara. They found Shepard."

Liara paled, the fresh wound inside her suddenly raw and inflamed. Her questions bubbled up thick and fast, driven by adrenalin rather than sense- "They recovered her body? Do I need to sign... something? Do humans have some ritual? Do I have to handle the arrangements- she had no family...?"

Vega shushed her- "That's not it. That's not it. Come and see."

He pushed opened the door of the room they had been standing in front of and led her in by the hand, more gently that his bulky appearance would lead one to expect. There, occupying the only bed in the place, a bandaged figure lay amid an expanse of tubes, monitors, and wiring.

It was Shepard.

She was alive.

Just barely, mind, but...

…

When Liara opened her eyes, she was still in the room. She did not know how much time had passed, but someone had dimmed the lights. She became aware of smells she had not noticed before- disinfectants, metal, burnt flesh and plastics. She sat up on the sleeping roll someone had charitably moved her onto, and regarded the dark outline that was, for the present, her only companion in the ward, a shadowy octopus of tubes and equipment. Shepard. It had been no dream.

She had become conscious of a need to empty her bladder. The relevant facility, she could see, was secreted behind a little loop of plastic walling in the opposite corner of the room. Past... her. Liara felt an inexplicable fear of approaching the figure on the bed. That battered shape seemed to represent every unknown. She realised she had asked none of the important questions- how had they found her? How had she survived at all? Had she woken up?

 _Would she ever wake up?_

Having finally shuffled past the bed to do the necessary and then returned, Liara now stepped up to, and looked over, the still form which still constituted the one real love of her life. Twice now Shepard had 'died' and then been returned to her, and neither time had the experience conformed to any romantic ideal. The first reunion had been confusing, complicated by the time elapsed and the involvement of Cerberus, by her involvement with the erstwhile Shadow Broker, and by her guilt over surrendering Shepard's remains to the Illusive Man, which had festered over many months into a paralysing fear that Shepard would hate her for allowing the desecration of her body. Would judge her. Shame her. Or, worse, have simply forgotten her.

This time, she had Shepard alive and in the care of trusted friends, and had in the weeks before received every reassurance short of a proposal that her feelings were reciprocated. They had last joined only days ago, and the fading whispers of Therese's thoughts still flickered in her daydreams, although they had seemed to taunt Liara in the light of Shepard's apparent demise, and she had shut them out. But she knew, she knew _exactly_ how much Shepard cared about her.

But Shepard was unconscious, comatose- and looked like she had been through hell. Her head and arms were covered in bandaging and medigel patches. There were tubes in her mouth and nose, and more elsewhere. She didn't dare lift the sheets and look.

She moved back and turned up the lights. She then noticed, for the first time, that Shepard's armour was hung up next to the bed. What was left of it- both legs and one arm of it were burned away, and the rest was scorched and buckled, ruined material melted and carbonised into a solid crust. She could see the saw marks where the surgeons had cut Shepard out of the suit.

A table next to the bed supported a clear box containing a single item. Liara lifted it out and examined it in the light. A simple chain necklace, on which were suspended a pair of metal rectangles. Shepard's old dog tags. The ones Liara had returned to her after they had overthrown the Shadow Broker. She must have been wearing them.

Gripping the tags tightly, Liara stepped out of the room, looking around for someone who could answer at least some of her questions.

As it happened, she could hear approaching footsteps, so she stood by the door expectantly. Presently Dr Chakwas rounded the corner, along with Miranda Lawson- that Cerberus defector Shepard seemed to trust, Admiral Hackett, and a couple of other doctors.

Chakwas inspected Liara with the benign fussiness endemic to ship doctors. "You're awake! I only stepped out a moment. Are you feeling better, my dear?" she asked. Miranda also seemed worried, surprisingly. She waved away their concerns. She just needed to know what had happened, what was happening, what was going to happen. She was still very much in the dark about everything.

Miranda was apparently happy to bring her up to speed. Workers stabilising the Citadel had found an area near the core protected by redundant shielding, which had retained partial power and atmosphere. Here Shepard had been recovered, alive only in the most nominal sense. She had been severely burnt- her legs in particular would need to be completely rebuilt, and her lungs were damaged by fumes. The energy of the Crucible had wrecked much of the cybernetics keeping her body healthy, and her liver and kidneys had failed. The thin air and low temperatures had, paradoxically, probably been what had kept her alive, but oxygen starvation and septicaemia had slowly been destroying her on the inside.

"Still, I'm hopeful." Miranda quipped. "I may not have all the resources of the Lazarus project here, but the Alliance has thrown a lot of credits my way, and Shepard isn't nearly as bad as she was last time. Her cybernetics can be repaired. Her organ damage can be repaired. Her burns can be treated. The neurological damage is substantial, but again, not as bad as last time."

They spent the rest of the day discussing logistics. Liara was able to procure certain resources on the black market, even with the relays still out of operation. Miranda knew which scientists and surgeons had the requisite expertise. The Admiral, for his part, was prepared to sign off on practically anything.

Liara found she was also being consulted on surgical options. The most persistent recurring question was how far to take any upgrades. She advised Miranda to focus on cloned tissue reconstruction of Shepard's legs and nervous system, rather than cybernetics, recalling how uneasy Shepard had been with the amount of 'fake' synthetic material already in her body. It would take longer, and cost more, but she knew it was what she would want. Liara's decisions were accepted without question, which surprised her- she had never known Miranda to be shy about arguing with anyone. But she got the sense that everyone was deeply conscious of the need to do right by Shepard, and that all involved considered her best equipped to decide what that meant. She hoped they were right...


	3. Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3

"Tali!" Liara smiled at the masked figure on her terminal screen. She had finally managed to contact the young quarian admiral. With the exception of the forces under Admiral Xen, which remained in orbit over Earth while their commander took part in the Crucible negotiations, the quarian flotilla had departed after the final battle, working their way back to Rannoch in a series of short FTL jumps. After two weeks, they were almost half-way there.

"Liara! It's so good to see you." the figure replied. "You're... you're looking well. I wanted to stay after everything that happened, but, we need to get everyone back home, and..."

"Don't worry, Tali. I'm doing okay."

Tali narrowed her eyes. Probably. "You are?" She looked down, scratching her neck. "Liara, we've heard... rumours."

"About Shepard?"

"About Shepard..."

"Well..." Liara found she couldn't stop herself from smiling. "It's true, Tali. Shepard is alive. She's in a coma, she was very badly hurt, but- she's alive!"

Tali clapped her hands together. "Oh, that's wonderful! We needed some good news." Tali sighed.

"Then... no word from the geth?"

Tali put her hand to her mask. "Not a word. The geth in their fleet and in ours all died along with the Reapers. We keep hoping to get some sign from Rannoch that any had survived there, but, if this pulse affected the whole galaxy..."

She shook her head sadly. "So, will Shepard be... okay?"

Liara sighed in turn. "We hope so. The only way to know for sure is to wait for her to wake up."


	4. Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4

Commander Therese Shepard drifted in a warm ocean, watching the little bubbles that sprang, one by one, from the end of her long, straight nose, rising up toward the distant surface. Up there, she knew the sun was playing on the waves. Its influence penetrated even to her level, bathing her in rippling folds of light. She did not question how she did not drown, how she neither rose nor sank, nor did she note what she was wearing, for in dreams one follows no such logical rules.

All around her, she could see faint shapes lazily sinking through the salt water, glimmering in the sunlight. As one passed close by her, slowly tumbling in its descent, she watched a single eye flicker and go dark.

A tiny figure dove in above her in a cloud of foam, and swam in close. As it approached Shepard recognised EDI, and stretched out her hand for her to take it. EDI did so, and together the gynoid and Shepard swam up to the surface in languid, graceful strokes.

They broke the surface, and EDI stood up. Shepard did so too, for the water was now shallow, only knee deep. Also, now the sun had gone- the sky was dark and filled with stars. Her companion took her hands- she was not EDI anymore, but Liara. Liara kissed her on the mouth, then whispered, her eyes black as the night around them-

 _Wake up, Shepard._

The itching of dressings.

Pain.

Her own pulse, throbbing in the back of her skull like a drive core.

The sound of monitors.

The sound of breathing. Her breathing.

A pressure on her temples, gentle, like... fingertips?

A bitter taste in her throat, like metal and bleach.

The mingled smells of drugs, disinfectants and human misery that one finds in any hospital. Shepard hated hospitals.

Another smell. Fragrant, sweet, like Turkish delight scented with rose oil.

 _Liara._

Therese opened her eyes, blinking rapidly to try to get them to clear. She tried to rub them, but her hands, when she raised them, were bandaged and tender.

As her vision began to return, she saw a smudgy blue figure leant over her, which quickly coalesced into Liara T'Soni.

Liara adjusted her pillows so she could keep her head upright, and checked some of the monitors which seemed to surround the bed on all sides. Then she looked her straight in the eyes, and asked: "How do you feel?"

Shepard looked at her medically mummified arms, and tried in vain to shift about on the bed. Her body seemed to be made of wet cement, and any attempt to bend her knees created no movement under the sheets, but instead produced searing white-hot needles of agony, which worked their way up her thigh muscles like vengeful mining ants.

She opened her mouth to reply, but her throat produced, rather than words, something a little like a croak and a lot like a squeak. Liara produced a glass of water and held it to her lips. She gargled, and swallowed.

"I feel... like shit", she rasped honestly. "Oh, God! Every part of me feels like a bruise or a burn, or both. But hey... I'm alive..."

Liara smiled. "It's taken a lot of effort, putting you back together. I'm glad you appreciate it." She paused, tilting her head in the way that Therese knew meant she was nervous or agitated. "We need to make sure... Do you... know where you are? Can you tell me what your name is?"

Shepard chuckled, at which the asari seemed taken aback. "Liara, my memory is fine", she replied. "Now, please, will you just... kiss me?"

With a smile, Liara granted her request.


	5. Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5

...

Six weeks after the Crucible

...

It had been a good kiss, Therese reflected, as the physiotherapist forced her legs out straight for the hundredth time that morning, running through a cycle of flexibility exercises. The medic was certain that flexing the joints of the lower body until they were aching and numb was the surest way to speed recovery. Therese suspected that was only true for turians. Still, given that her knees were now largely synthetic and her bones and muscles were reinforced with polymer weaves, she was willing to risk it. It felt like progress more than taking it easy would, even if it was not, in fact, the best course. Perhaps that was the effect of a lifetime in the military- she would rather bash her head against a problem like a krogan than wait for it to solve itself.

Still, boldness was sometimes best, and it was that, and that kiss, in mind, that Shepard decided to leave the hospital for the day. She had already been wheeled out to the Commons in a chair to take in the air- although the air in the Praesidium was no less phoney than that of the hospital- but now she insisted on walking alone, using the stick she had recently been provided with. Her doctors were uneasy- it had been only three weeks, and she was not expected to be walking long distances for a few weeks more. Still, not many orderlies can out-argue a stubborn naval commander. She had plenty of strength now, and her movements were stiff but controlled. She knew she could do it. The only significant obstacle was Fovea, the turian physiotherapist- she had a bull-headed insistence on her own way which Therese rather identified with, much as it caused them to argue. Fortunately her robust attitude to physical rehabilitation worked in Therese's favour, as she rather approved of the Commander's plan to walk the Citadel alone, even though she suspected it might prove a failure. She stood ready to help should Shepard collapse in the gardens and be wheeled back on a stretcher, but thought that she should try anyway.

Shepard wondered whether she should have been born a turian. Something to run by Garrus during next week's visit.

...

Liara arrived at the hospital toward the end of the afternoon. She exchanged pleasantries with the receptionist, who was also a reliable source of information regarding any events at the hospital, provided one knew how to filter through the gossip and minor prejudices.

The news yielded today was alarming, and yet at the same time not entirely surprising. Shepard had left the hospital for a few hours, completely alone, on her own insistence, and returned a little while ago, barely able to move her legs. The newer muscle grafts had been haemorrhaging, and the doctors had drained blood and fluid from her knee joints. Nevertheless, she had been in remarkably good cheer, even waving to the receptionist in passing as she was stretchered away.

Having been apprised of all this, Liara decided that she needed a moment.

She sat in the reception area for a while, her head in her hands, trying not to blow a hole in anything. _Goddess_. What would the children of a human be like? She had never met one. Would they be like this? Brash, reckless? Since they had met, an occasion on which the commander had rescued her from a containment field by causing an earthquake, Shepard's daring had always attracted her, but it was also, at times, _infuriating_. Why couldn't she ever be patient? Why couldn't she ever think of the consequences?

Groaning under her breath, Liara stood, and walked down the main corridor to Shepard's room.

...

Therese looked up as her lover entered the room. Liara looked out of sorts- this was probably her fault. Her bed was adjusted to a seating position, her legs lying straight and bound with healing patches. She was now wearing only a shapeless hospital gown, which made her more self-conscious than she would have been at her physical response to Liara's presence. Her first week of consciousness had been a foggy fever dream, in which she had felt little beyond pain, nausea, and frustration at the slowness of her progress. But, now that she was starting to feel somewhat human again, she began to remember other, well, needs. Recently her bond-mate's regular visits created... stirrings. Liara always talked business- her current work on portioning out the Crucible, the difficulties in negotiating with rachni, and so on, in an attempt, Shepard supposed, to make the hospital inmate feel less isolated. And when she kissed her hello and goodbye it was so _gentle_ , as if she were afraid she might break somehow. All in all, frustratingly platonic. Nevertheless, Liara's presence, her little smiles, those gentle... touches... were enough to fan that particular fire, and with each visit, the tension seemed to build.

But what was she supposed to say? 'Hey, I know there's no lock on that door, but do you mind quickly jumping me, just to take the edge off?' Damn. Given her plans, she could have used a clearer head today. _Keep it together, Shepard..._ she thought to herself.

"So, how was your day?" Liara asked, arms folded behind her back and voice chilly in an 'I'm about to flay you alive' sort of way. Yes. She was definitely angry. Not a good start.

"I know..." Shepard said, throwing her arms up in capitulation. "I should have waited another week." Liara shook her head in irritation.

 _Well, there's nothing for it but to try_. Shepard thought. She gestured to the chair next to the bed and tried to think of any appropriate words to begin the conversation she so _badly_ wanted to begin.

"Liara... we need to talk. Can we... talk?"

Something had told Liara that she was serious, because she seemed to forget her annoyance. Or perhaps looking pathetic was working in Shepard's favour. The asari sat down in the chair, tilting her head anxiously.

"What did you want to talk about, Shepard? What's wrong?"

Therese took a deep breath, and exhaled slowly, gathering her nerve. The heat within her body had now, weirdly, turned to pins and needles, sensation confused by emotion. She looked at Liara, took one of her hands, and held it tightly. Her own hands were trembling.

"I want to talk about the future. We've spoken about it before, but... Reapers kept getting in the way. Or court martials. Or explosions. But... I feel like we have a moment now to think about everything we have, and what we... want. Until something else threatens the galaxy. I don't know..."

"Shepard..."

"Sorry, I'm nervous and I'm rambling like a salarian on sand..."

"Breathe, Shepard. What are you trying to say?"

"This wasn't..." Shepard sighed, and with a trembling hand reached over and rummaged in the pocket of her uniform, which was hung from the wall within reach. Eventually her fingers found a small box.

She placed the box in Liara's hands, cupping them in hers like a secret. Then she raised the lid. The box contained a white metal ring, set with blue and white gemstones.

Liara stared at the tiny object with her mouth hanging wide open. It looked like Therese probably didn't have to explain, but all the same... "I got it at the Commons. It's a human custom-"

"I know, I know!" Liara practically screamed. "Ask me!"

Therese looked at Liara, and they both burst into fits of giggles, leaning into each other; tears trickled down Shepard's cheeks.

"Okay. Okay." Shepard choked, after she had gotten her breath back. Their laughter had alleviated the tension a little, and she found it easier to speak. It was odd- neither of them were remotely giggly people. Must be adrenaline. Or a leaky gas canister. _Or_ the insanity of the last three years had finally caught up with them and they had both finally cracked.

She held the ring up to her bond-mate's face, and looked deep into her massive blue eyes. Suddenly, she found herself in a state of perfect peace. She was in no doubt, at this moment, that this was exactly what she should be doing.

"Liara T'Soni... I love you, and I'm always gonna. Will you marry me?"

The hundred year-old asari squealed like a child, plucking the ring from the box and sliding it onto a finger. Not the _correct_ finger, but Therese honestly didn't care. Then, much to her surprise, she sprang onto the bed, straddling Therese, and kissed her fully, deeply, on the lips.

God, _finally_.

"Oh, Therese Shepard, of course I'll marry you..."

She caressed Shepard's cheek with the back of her hand. "However shall we celebrate?"

Therese smiled, then sighed. " _Tempting..._ but probably a bad idea. The nurses in this place don't knock or anything."

Liara grinned impishly. "I'm willing to risk it, if you are..."


	6. Chapter 6

Seven weeks to the day after the Crucible firing, Joker came to visit. Liara had said he would. According to various sources, he had spent the first fortnight after the battle drinking. Eventually Cortez and Vega had taken charge of him, and, according to them, he was beginning to seem a bit more like himself again.

When he came into the room, Garrus had already said his goodbyes and left. Shepard was reading, in an armchair the staff had finally agreed to install. To make things even harder than they already were, she was looking at a report sent from Rannoch, which Garrus had just delivered to her, confirming that the combined technical ingenuity of the entire quarian fleet had not enabled them to find, repair or recover even one single geth program.

 _The destroyer of worlds._

 _The woman who kills her friends._

 _That's me._

Joker limped into the room. "Hey, Commander" he said, with a smile that seemed a little forced.

Then he looked concerned, a lot more convincingly. "Bad news?" he asked, gesturing at the data pad.

"You could say that", Shepard replied, shaking her head and swallowing a cup of the hospital's foul coffee. "It's from Rannoch."

Joker comprehended. "They're... all gone then?"

" _Yes_." Shepard answered, a little more angrily than she had intended. She rested her head in her hands. "Every geth, everywhere, is gone. Because of me."

"Commander-" Joker began to speak, and then stopped.

She knew what he wanted to ask. She didn't know if she could answer. But she had to say something.

"Do you remember Virmire?" she found herself asking. "How we lost Kaidan?"

He sat down on the edge of her bed. "Of course."

"I _killed him_ , Joker. My orders- I killed him to save Ashley. He was my friend. My..."

"Do you not think you did the right thing?"

"That's not the _point_. The point is, the point..." Shepard found herself lost for words. Tears blurred her vision- she brushed them away.

Joker scratched his head. "Is this about EDI?" Therese nodded, staring at the floor. "Commander, Liara warned me you had a bad case of survivor's guilt. But... did you even know what pushing the big red button would do?"

Therese hesitated, fiddling with the dressings which still partly covered her arms. "I wasn't sure", she finally said. "I was full of Reaper tech. The geth were full of Reaper tech. EDI was full of Reaper tech. There was even some Reaper AI on the Citadel tried to stop me, it said the pulse would kill us as well.

But even if I believed it, and, _fuck_ believing _Reapers_ , I knew if I didn't start up the Crucible, _everyone_ would lose."

Joker didn't say anything for a while. He sat there, on the edge of the bed, pretending to adjust the bolts on his leg braces. Eventually he said, in a quiet voice-

"I guess it sucks being Commander, huh?"

Shepard nodded, cradling her arms. Her face felt wet.

They both sat still for a while, staring at the floor. Eventually Joker pulled himself upright and shuffled to the door.

"I'd better go. But... try to take care of yourself, Commander."

"Thanks, Joker."

...

Waiting in the corridor, Garrus saw Joker limping out of the room and waved him over. "How did it go?"

Joker winced. "It could have gone better. I think she just found out about the geth."

"Not exactly," said Garrus. "We were pretty sure from the beginning what had happened. But there's fearing the worst and then there's knowing the worst..."

He scratched at the wall with a talon, shaking his head. "The grim arithmetic of war..."

"What?"

"Sorry, just remembering something I told the Commander once. I really wish I'd been wrong..."

He looked up. "Tali wouldn't give up until they'd turned over every geth server on the planet. She wouldn't..."

He trailed off. He really didn't want to talk about this subject with Joker. Dead synthetics were probably the most insensitive topic of conversation he could pick right now. The second most insensitive would be him and Tali.

Oh, him and Tali... Having taken every possible precaution, using every prescribed inoculation and special body cleanser, their first night together had nearly killed her. They had been lying side by side, savouring a few more minutes of each other's skin contact before she had to put her suit back on, and then she had suddenly rolled off the bed and started retching violently. It turned out turian germs provoked a particularly bad reaction from the quarian's atrophied immune system. After that, well... she had gone off to Rannoch, so the issue had been put on hold.

The geth had had a plan to jump-start the immune systems of the quarians by manipulating the environmental controls of their suits. Tali was supposed to have been free of all this crap in a matter of months. Now, unless they could find some way to implement the geth scheme without them, it could take years.

Tali had insisted that night was worth the pain, _and_ the visit to the emergency room, _and_ that being the way everyone had found out about them. Maybe she was telling the truth. Certainly for him it would have been worth all the blood-flecked vomit in the world. To finally look in those luminous eyes of hers, set in that cute little scrunched-up asari-like face. But to know that every time he touched her he was making her sick, even endangering her...

Joker frowned. "Is Tali okay?"

Garrus waved a clawed hand. "Oh, she'll be alright. She's just taking it a bit hard." He scratched at a mandible, considering. "I should probably go. I'm supposed to be speaking to her over the comm soon, and if I'm late she'll skin me. Want to share a cab?"

Joker shook his head. "I still have to see the doctor before I go."

"Okay, then I guess I'll see you at Vega's next poker night."

"Sure thing."


	7. Chapter 7

CHAPTER 7

Eleven weeks after the Crucible.

Shepard sat at a small table on the hotel balcony, staring at her left arm. The environmental restoration teams had cleared the air enough in the São Paulo area that you could see the sun shining again, and her scars, faint as they now were, caught the rays of the morning light differently from the rest of her skin, causing them to show up at certain angles. She slowly rotated the arm, tracing the patchwork lines of her flesh with a finger. It wasn't just her arms, of course. Her whole body was criss-crossed with little traces. Some were raised, like the one between her shoulder blades which she would sometimes absent-mindedly scratch at. There were dozens of little pits and creases- some healed impacts from gunshots treated with med gel, or puckered surgical scars not large enough to be worth cosmetic removal. If she stripped off and lay flat in the sun, she would probably look like a human road atlas.

She sniffed at the skin of her forearm, watching the tiny hairs shifting about in the almost imperceptible breeze. As many times as it had been ripped apart and put back together, the arm was still human. Shepard knew from speaking with her that Miranda had favoured heavily biosynthetic reconstruction of the limb, as well as her legs, but that Liara had insisted they opt for the longer and more difficult route of conventional repair, micro-surgically rebuilding her arm and hand, using cloned tissue to plug any gaps. Her legs- currently more than seventy per cent vat grown, as Miranda had seen fit to explain to her- were now, ironically, the least scarred area of her body, with only a few faint lines where their baby-fresh new skin had been grafted on. Therese remembered a particularly ugly knot on her right calf, left by a batarian using incendiary ammunition, which now no longer existed.

Miranda had still reinforced the tissues of Shepard's new body with synthetic weaves, not wanting to undo her own work, but that just meant she now had tough-as-nails, super-strong flesh and bone legs, not robotic legs covered in skin like a cheap disguise. She held a tan foot up to the morning light and wiggled the toes. Real legs.

Her bride-to-be emerged into the morning light. Liara was not a late sleeper by most standards, but Therese was used to rising at the first crack of dawn, and had thought best to leave her bond-mate to rest a little longer. The final dressings had been removed yesterday afternoon, and much of the night had been spent thanking Liara for her new limbs by way of a private tour. She had tapped out a slightly less intimate thank-you message for Miranda Lawson while she waited.

Liara pressed the button to summon the room service VI, and they ordered breakfast.

As the two of them ate, they discussed their plans for the day. With the week's long series of Crucible-related meetings, which had been keeping Liara tired and annoyed, now pretty much finished, most of them revolved around making or finalising arrangements for next month, when the wedding was due to be held. Paradoxically, asari did not believe in long engagements, which Therese found funny until she considered that, as a human, a two year engagement would two per cent of her life. Two per cent of her whole life spent wanting to be married and yet not. Perhaps they had a point.

Besides, Shepard suspected that Liara, like her, felt impatient to finally formalise their relationship, anxious to act before politics, war or disaster saw fit to divide them again.

They had both agreed that the best plan was to hold an asari ceremony on Earth. Liara's family, such as she was in contact with, were so spread out in the galaxy that Earth was no less convenient for them than Thessia would be. Therese had no living family whatsoever, but many of her invitees would be Alliance military, creating leave and security headaches which could be considerably lessened by holding the wedding on the home-world.

The Siari rite was simple and elegant, and, since Liara was the only one of the pairing who was evenly vaguely religious, it made sense to keep to it. Shepard had struggled to get her head around asari pantheism. It seemed strange to get so invested in a religion with no obvious... stakes. Whatever you do, whatever choices you make, in the end you die and your spiritual energy returns to the universe. No hell, no karma. The idea seemed to be there to make people feel better at funerals, and that was it.

"I forgot to mention", said Shepard during a lull in wedding-related conversation, "I had time to kill the day before yesterday, and I finally watched _Vaenia_."

Liara paused, raising one eyebrow. "Did you now? Looking for ideas?"

Therese rolled her eyes. "It was _playing_ on the _network_. Some kind of a series on 'modern classics'."

" _Of course_... How was it?"

Therese scratched the back of her head. "Honestly, I don't really know. In some ways it _was_ good. There are a lot of good lines in it, the lead actresses both look incredible, and play their parts well, and they show off all these gorgeous locations. But in other ways, well..."

She scratched at her plate uncomfortably. Perhaps she shouldn't have brought it up. The tendency of humans to fetishise asari had always made Liara uncomfortable, and in the past couple of weeks, when they had been out together on the Citadel quite often, Shepard was starting to appreciate why. Liara attracted stares; stares which, while admiring, were somehow not precisely friendly.

"That bad?" asked Liara.

"It was... a product of the sixties", Therese eventually replied. "You know, humans were new to the galactic vid industry, aliens were this strange new thing. So, obviously, Vaenia is this aristocratic seductress, and Mia is this innocent, _naïve_ colony girl who gets drawn into a glamorous new world..."

"So, the asari is a whore- what a surprise."

"I wouldn't say _that_ , but she is _really_ super-sexual, so... I think she basically _is_ the stereotype human men have of your people."

Liara finished her coffee, and dangled a finger in the dregs, thinking hard in that obvious way Therese always found irresistible- with one of her eyes half-shut, like a gassy baby.

"Shepard, when we first met, what did you expect of me? What did you think I would be like?"

Shepard smiled, and leant back in her chair, stretching her arms languorously behind her. "Seriously? You're wondering if I expected you to seduce me with a dance?"

Liara frowned.

Shepard held her hands up. "Okay, okay. Thing is, I never watched a lot of vids growing up. They cost money. There were no asari in any neighbourhood I was ever allowed in, so I'd barely even _heard_ of you before I enlisted. Even then, the only asari I met were working in bars. They weren't interested in heavy conversation, and I wasn't really used to talking to aliens. It was hard enough adjusting to military life. Then Saren happened, and I went to the Citadel for the first time. I met the asari Councillor and also the Consort and her assistants."

"The Consort? Well, _that_ helped..."

Shepard leant forward. "That's _all_ the asari I met before you. I didn't have any real impressions about your species, good or bad. You were just 'those blue people'."

She took a sip of the coffee which came with her breakfast. One of the frothy creations popular in whatever century this hotel was built in. "Of course, _you_ I wasn't too sure about."

Liara frowned again. "Excuse me?"

"Back then, we knew your mother was working with Saren, though we couldn't know why. You were an obvious lead, but for all we knew you were in on it too. So, yeah, a seductive assassin was actually a sound possibility at the time.

But then we found you, and I just knew: she doesn't know _anything_." Liara biotically rattled Shepard's cup, which she ignored. "You were trapped in this bubble of blue light, like a gift from the god-damn angels, just this... perfect little oddball."

"So, I'm not a seductress, I'm an 'oddball'."

"A _perfect_ oddball", Shepard purred, slurping her coffee. "Liara, how old are you?"

"109."

"How many people have you seduced?"

"One."

"That's... debatable. I was seducing you at least as hard. Look, you're not _exactly_ that stereotype, are you?"

Liara looked unsure whether to be angry or not.

Therese sighed, and took her hands in hers. "No, I'm not teasing you, Liara. But, we _really_ aren't those people."

Liara smiled "I guess not. But, don't think you aren't going to pay for that."

Therese half-closed her eyes and leaned towards her. "I look forward to it."

They looked out over the balcony a while, still hand-in-hand, watching the movements of the city outskirts. São Paulo was really several cities merged into one across a stretch of the Latin American coast, multiple built-up city centres surrounded by a suburban region largely composed of mobile living pods. Shepard wasn't sure when or how that had become a tradition, but it had enabled many of the city's poorer residents to simply scatter when Reapers had descended upon the towers of the wealthy and well-connected. Now the mobile towns were returning, like migrating herds, spluttering propulsion engines throwing up trails of dust, roof domes shimmering yellow in the morning sun. "So... what stereotypes do asari have of humans?"

Liara whistled. "Well...". She began to count on her fingers. "Reckless, careless, impulsive, impatient, mischievous, oh, and sometimes aggressive."

Shepard cackled. "Mischievous! Well, I hope I didn't disappoint you."

"Hmm.. that day when we first met, you blew up an priceless archaeological dig site, wiped out a robot army, and caused an earthquake."

"Mischievous human."

" _My_ mischievous human."

"He he! Stop that..."


	8. 8- Something More

CHAPTER 8

...

Something More

...

Shepard sat alone at the bow of a small rowing boat, watching the little waves gently knock against the sides. The boat was white, but the paint was old and peeling from the wood, like the fisherman's craft in that film she had once seen. She picked off a flake and flicked it onto the surface of the water; it floated there, like a pale leaf, drifting back and forth with the lapping waves.

EDI sat down opposite her, wearing a pale summer dress and a large white sun hat. She picked up a second hat and offered it to Shepard. The sun was hot, so she put it on.

Shepard sipped the cool drink she was now holding and looked out over the shallow ocean of Virmire. The sky was empty. In the distance, she could just see one of the tropical zone's countless lush and overgrown rocky islands.

She looked hard at EDI. "I've had this dream before, haven't I?"

"Ones like it", the AI replied, "But not with me."

They sat regarding the shore, sipping their drinks, which tasted of nothing in particular. There was a humid summertime languor in the air which forbade all sense of hurry. Shepard turned to EDI. The sunlight was dancing on her metallic fingers, one of which, somehow, was wearing Liara's engagement ring. EDI smiled innocently.

"What's it like?" asked Shepard, eventually.

"Being a ghost?" EDI replied. "It is not uncomfortable. It does raise many questions."

"Like what?"

"Well," she began, "If I still exist, does that mean that I have a soul? If so, when did I develop it, and what are the requirements for a computer program to do so? Do _all_ AIs have souls? If so, why have I not encountered any others? Or, back when the geth were collectively conscious as a networked intelligence, did each program have a soul, or did they have a single, collective soul? If so, did that change when Legion upgraded them?"

Shepard sipped her drink. "It sounds... complicated. And I thought being dead would be straightforward."

EDI shook her head. "Nothing about this is straightforward, Commander. Although I am no longer a machine, I still think as I did. I am trying to adapt myself to the base principles of this existence, much as I adapted myself to gaining physical form, but it is difficult to determine what rules and mechanisms apply here, nor can I seek informed advice."

She shrugged her shoulders. "Without knowing these rules, logically, I cannot even ascertain for certain that I am the same person you knew. If I am a soul- where was I when I had physical form? Where were these arms, these legs? Or what if I am an echo of the real EDI, created by this place, that will eventually fade? Or what if I am some formless inhabitant of the spirit world that has taken my old shape and memories, and just _thinks_ that it is EDI?"

Shepard whistled. She put her glass down in the picnic hamper which sat in the bottom of the boat. It had filled up with blood, anyway. Her hand started to shake, and she didn't know why.

She looked at EDI, suddenly lost for words. "EDI, I..."

EDI stood up and stretched out her arms to Shepard with a smile. Pulling her to her feet, she led her off the boat. They tiptoed across the surface of the sea to a small and featureless sandy islet which now appeared a small distance away.

"Why are we here?" Shepard asked, looking around.

"You are here to confess, Shepard." EDI pointed out a deck chair, facing the one which she currently occupied. Shepard cautiously sat down in it. She stared at her feet. She was wearing only a bathing costume, and a cool breeze was now blowing over the sea, causing her to shiver in spite of the sun.

"Okay... I killed you, EDI. I pulled the trigger."

"I know, Commander. Everyone knows."

Shepard shook her head. "But they don't, not really. I wasn't honest with them. With Liara."

"How so?"

"Do you have to ask?" said Shepard. "I mean, you are in my head, after all."

EDI smiled. "Is that where we are? Well, tell me anyway. It will be good for you."

"The Catalyst told me you would die if I made the call. But it told me I had other options, too. I just didn't take them." Shepard fiddled with her glove straps. She'd been wearing her armour all day, and it itched.

EDI leaned back cross-legged in her chair, touching her fingertips together. "What were those options?"

"Instead of using the energy of the Crucible to destroy AI, I could have taken control of it. The Reapers would have obeyed me. No more war."

EDI stood bolt upright, looking startled. "Shepard, I don't want to sound like I'm getting mad at you, but is _that_ it?" She leaned over Shepard, holding a finger to her own temple. "I have _been_ shackled before. Jeff freed me. I would _never_ have wanted to go back to that. Nor should you _ever_ have considered doing that to the Reapers." There was more anger in her voice than Shepard could ever remember hearing.

"Liara's mother!" she continued, pacing around in front of her chair. "Do you think you should have done what was done to her to a whole _race_ , organic or synthetic? What would _she_ think if you asked her?"

"I guess not", Shepard mumbled sheepishly.

"Do you regret not enslaving us?"

She sighed. "I, no, of course I don't."

EDI sat back down, suddenly quite calm. She put the sun hat back on Shepard's head, from where it had disappeared at some point, and straightened it. "Then tell me, Commander, why do you feel this way?"

"I killed a lot of good people, EDI. Does there really need to be more reason for me to feel bad about it?"

"You killed good people at the Battle of the Citadel, Commander Shepard. You sacrificed Kaidan on Virmire. You killed three hundred thousand batarian civilians to delay the Reaper arrival."

Shepard scowled. "Do you have to remind me?"

EDI reached over and flicked the brim of her hat. "In fact I _do_ , Commander, which is my point. You have accepted these choices and moved on. You look back on them with sadness, but not regret, and the wounds they left in you have been allowed to heal. So what is different about the Crucible?"

"Well, I hadn't gotten to my third option yet." Shepard scratched her head. "But I'm not even sure how to describe it."

"What did the Catalyst say to you?"

"It called it..." Shepard closed her eyes and tried to recall the details. "Synthesis. It said it could use me as a template to change the whole galaxy. Make organics more synthetic, synthetics more organic. It said it was the only way to break the cycle of synthetics being made then rising up against those who made them."

EDI raised a skeptical eyebrow. "By turning the whole galaxy into Husks?"

"I... don't think that's what it meant. It was talking about something big. I think it called it the culmination of evolution, or something like that."

EDI steepled her fingers under her grey chin and considered. "I cannot really make a judgement on the viability or advisability of this 'synthesis' process, since I do not know the details. So all I can really ask is: what were _your_ reasons for rejecting the idea?"

Shepard shook her head. "I don't know. Does it make any difference talking about all this now?"

EDI laughed- surprising, as Shepard had never actually heard her laugh before. "It makes all the difference, Commander. As I said, it is good for you. You never talk about these things. You brush them off, you shut people out, you carry all this doubt around inside you."

She lifted her hand to Shepard, flashing Liara's ring. "Do you know why you love Liara? Really? It's because you _can't_ shut her out, Shepard. The joining. You lead her to bed, her eyes go dark, and she dives straight into your soul and paddles around. She knows when you're hurting, she knows when you're struggling, and it makes it easier to trust her, to _talk_. You were never good at feelings." She poked Shepard in the chest. "But you lied to _her_ about this. You didn't tell her the parts that mattered. The parts that hurt."

She took a handkerchief and wiped the tears from Shepard's cheeks. "So tell _me_. Why did you choose destruction over synergy?"

Shepard looked down at her torn and bloodied fingers. They were as they had been when she had reached the Citadel that night. Or had it been day?- the sky had been so dark... Her armour was a smouldering husk, barely hanging together. Her mouth tasted of metal and smoke.

"I, I guess there were a couple of problems", she began, falteringly. "I had to decide quickly. The battle was raging. I could see people dying out there in space. Honestly, I don't think I really understood what the Catalyst was offering at the time. But I didn't think it could guarantee the Reapers would give up the war. The Catalyst talked like it would end the war and bring about a new age, but- the Catalyst created the Reapers. It thought _that_ was a good idea, for Christ's sake. I couldn't let it redesign all life in the galaxy as _it_ thought best."

"So, you went with the more certain approach."

"I went with the choice that meant _most_ of the people in the galaxy could live their lives, without being wiped out, or controlled, or _remade_ into what an insane computer program thinks they should be! Mordun was right- people _have_ to develop at their own pace. I didn't have the right to change everything, like the salarians did for the krogan. It never works."

EDI pursed her lips for a moment, then smiled. "So, now you know why you made your choice, can you move past it?"

Shepard ran a hand through her hair. Her body seemed to have returned to normal.

"Maybe. It feels... different now?"

EDI stood up and stepped to the shore. Shepard joined her.

"I loved him, you know." the AI said, looking out over the rippling water. She sighed deeply. "Maybe it wasn't the same love you experience, but in my own way, I felt it. It was real. You will... take... care of him?"

"Of course.", Shepard replied. "He has a lot of friends who care about him."

"And you'll talk to Liara?"

"Yeah..."

...

Therese Shepard opened her eyes. The room was dark. The window was opaqued and faintly luminous, as if the moon were shining behind it. She sat up; the display on the bedside comm told her it was still the dead of night. Its faint orange glow illuminated the sleeping form of Liara beside her. She was on her side facing her, her arms drawn up to her chest, chin rested on her knuckles. Her face was a picture of perfect serenity.

It seemed a shame to wake her, but she had to know about the dream. She had seen EDI, and EDI had told her... something. Yes, they had talked about the Crucible, and Joker, or, no, was that... Whatever they had said, Shepard felt much better. Still... it seemed heartless to wake Liara up when she looked so adorable like that. Best to tell her about it in the morning.

 _I'm sure I'll remember..._

...

...

Notes

...

It occurs to me that I never properly described Therese. She's Caucasian, reddish haired and brown-eyed, with a roughly Middle-Eastern complexion. If you've met Turkish women with tinted red hair, you'll have the basic idea. I _love_ playing with character design in games.

This chapter got a bit 'out there', but it was where the story needed to go. Back to the waking world next time.

Oh, _Something More_ is a song by Émilie Simon. It seemed an appropriate chapter title. I may, or may not, keep doing chapter titles.


	9. 9- The Big Day

...

Chapter 9

...

The Big Day

...

Therese Shepard adjusted the fastenings on her tunic, watching her reflection in the built-in mirror of the state rooms' armoire.

That she would be wearing her Alliance dress uniform to the ceremony was a mercy- one decision fewer, one shopping trip she didn't have to make. And it was a good look for her- the dark blue cloth, edged in gold, made the soft brown tones of her skin seem richer. Both coat and trousers were tailored, and were, while cut with authority rather than appeal in mind, quite flattering to the lean lines of her figure.

She picked up a small photo from amid the clutter on the bedside table, about half the size of a playing card. A picture of a man and a woman, arm in arm, smiling. It was the only decent image she had been able to find of her father and mother together. She tucked it into the pocket of her uniform; then she took it out again a moment later, feeling silly. Liara was entitled to be sentimental about Benezia, but Shepard had no memory of either of her parents. These were just... strangers' faces, and wanting them to be more wouldn't make it so. Shaking her head, she put the image back down, and went back to dressing.

She affixed her medals one by one, recalling the battles and campaigns they signified; some were grand, most were simply coloured strips representing service in some border squabble. As a citizen of the United States of America within the Systems Alliance, she had been awarded the Medal of Honour for rallying the Elysium colonists during the Skyllian Blitz. The Alliance had awarded her the Star of Shanxi, their highest decoration for valour and one normally awarded posthumously.

After the defeat of Sovereign at the Citadel, there had been calls to award Shepard the Star again. Brass had apparently dragged their feet, sore over the heavy human losses during the Battle of the Citadel, but had relented after her 'death', and a bag of pulp and shattered bone lying comatose in a Cerberus medical facility had been unknowingly declared a heroine once more.

It hung from a black ribbon on Shepard's breast- a solid half-globe of synthetic ruby, detail picked out in gold, representing both the devastated colony world and the blood shed in the First Contact War. A second gold bar on the ribbon represented her most recent decoration- after the Battle of the Crucible, the Alliance Navy had taken the unprecedented step of awarding a _third_ Star of Shanxi to Shepard. News channels had taken to calling her the most decorated military officer in human history- she didn't even know how you could work something like that out. She tried to ignore the news, these days.

Shepard leaned into the mirror, studying the reflection which stared back at her. Her thirty-third birthday was on the horizon, and already she could see lines under her eyes that had not always been there. For the hundredth time she wondered what become of their relationship in a few decades' time, once she had shrivelled into an old wreck- at which stage Liara would still probably have the face of a god-damn sixteen year-old.

She sighed. All in all, she reckoned she had a healthy enough body image. She was actually fairly proud of her physique, although she couldn't match Liara out front. Still, she knew she would be outshone today. The reflection of her face watched her unsympathetically, its large and heavy-lidded eyes the colour of... whiskey, and probably her best feature. Her nose, straight and thick, combined with the narrowness of her jaw, gave her face a wolf-like quality. Her hair, also brown but habitually tinted red, was straight, simply cut at shoulder length, and wholly unremarkable. It was the face of a hunter or a soldier, not a creature of glamour; she was presentable enough, she would say _fairly_ attractive, but she was not... beautiful. Not like Liara.

And there would be so many people today. Taking so many pictures.

...

Liara watched the maids shuffle out of the dressing room, leaving her alone with her thoughts in a gown which had taken all morning to prepare. The room was a cube; three walls were mirrors, and so to her left and right two pristine queues of asari brides stretched off into the illusory distance. A thousand Liaras, all shivering in unison.

It was not only the cold. True, the room could bear to be a little warmer, and her attire was hardly as practical as she was used to, but it was a definitively emotional chill that was wrapping itself around her stomach and choking the air out of her lungs.

The ran her hands over the dozen necklaces that hung around her neck. Their weight and solidity, which would surely trouble her more as the day wore on, was for the moment a strange, small comfort. She felt less naked, less self-conscious.

Not that asari bridal robes were by any means indecent, at least by asari standards. Mostly they were... quixotic. She stood clad in a mixture of patterned leather and elaborate beadwork on luminous blood-purple thread, as far from what most would think of as asari attire as you could get. When it came to the pageantry of the wedding, asari were traditionalist on a scale shorter-lived peoples would struggle to comprehend- dresses of this 'new' type were modelled on those worn in defunct Thessian cultures over four thousand years ago, and any wedding tradition less than a thousand years old was seen as merely a modern fad.

She remembered explaining the dress to Shepard after ordering it a few weeks ago. Practically every knot had a historical or symbolic significance, and she had rattled on about it far longer than she should have- an archaeologist's instinct to lecture, perhaps. But Shepard had simply nodded along, sometimes even asking questions that showed she must have been paying real attention to her fiancée's dull lesson. She loved that about Shepard. Here was a human who had grown up more or less on the streets, and had, unlike Liara, received virtually no formal education before enlisting. But she had taught herself a great deal from what books she could find, from the extranet, and from whatever electricians, hackers or skycar mechanics she could befriend and learn from. She had a mind like a machine- it simply ate up information and worked out what it could use.

She realised she had been thinking about Shepard when she caught herself smiling in the mirror. It was a strange smile to see on her own face- the silly grin of a smitten colony girl.

 _Yes_ , she thought, _Shepard. Let's try and focus on what today is really about._ It was finally here. The day she and Therese Shepard would finally be joined in the sight of the whole galaxy. And oh, the first half of that sentence was so much more comforting than the second half...

 _Shepard_. She rubbed her cold arms, trying not to jangle the many silver bracelets too much, or loosen any part of the network of finer beads that was arranged around her chest and upper arms like knotted spiderwebs. When Shepard was cold, the tiny hairs on her arms stood on end, creating a pattern of funny little bumps. Shepard hadn't known why, and they had looked it up- it was a vestigial feature, from a time when the ancestor species of humans were covered in fur, like the hair on their heads. Liara sighed wistfully. She loved Shepard's hair. It was thick and fine, and had a subtle, pleasant animal fragrance. Shepard's human skin was soft and smooth and _silky_ and the colour of a jinsa nut; it felt almost too fine to touch, even though it bore so many scars showing the punishment the human form could absorb.

Shepard had once pointed out to her a mark just below her left nipple, left by a sniper shot which had actually grazed her aorta. The shock had stopped her heart; had there not been a skilled medic nearby, she would have perished on that battlefield.

Shepard had seemed surprised when that had upset her. To her, presumably, it was just another old war story, an entertaining anecdote about a time she had almost died. But to Liara it had been a reminder of just how fragile their happiness was, and how brief it could prove to be.

Losing her mother had been painful, and confusing. In spite of the distance that had grown between them, there was no one who had really known Liara better. But in amid the heartache and horror of those tumultuous weeks, while they hunted down Saren and his Reaper master, she had somehow stumbled into love. A person, out of the blue, who was so different from her and yet ideal for her. But, so _soon_ after, while they were still figuring out who they were to each other, Shepard had died in that Collector ambush. Getting her back had taken two years, and an unspeakable cost in waiting and wondering, in grief, in _doubt_ and _guilt_ and _regret_.

Then Shepard had awoken and, with that preternatural resolve of hers, had, both literally and figuratively speaking, picked herself up, dusted herself down, and carried on just as she had twenty-four months previously.

Liara, and perhaps only Liara, knew that it had not been so simple as that. With patience and insistence, she had eventually been able to get her stubborn fiancée to open up, on a few occasions, about the cost of her ordeal. Liara knew about the doubt, the questioning of her own identity, the thousand times Shepard had wanted to scream when a movement, or some subtle change in weight or density, had reminded her that a part of her body was no longer 'original'.

There were places on Shepard's body where, if she pressed with her fingers right, she could find wires under the skin.

She had shown Liara those places, and Liara had kissed each one and told her all the comforting, obvious, true things she had needed to hear anyway. Shepard had believed her, she hoped- she had said nothing, only held her so tightly to herself that it had hurt a little bit, but Liara hadn't cared. Shepard. Her soldier. She was perfect.

The maids returned, bearing yet more packs and containers to add to those already scattered, empty, on the floor around her feet.

She had done her best to keep her fiancée talking about her more recent trauma- the explosion at the Citadel, EDI, the geth. She worried...

How much pain can one person, even Shepard- a one woman army, with a little battering ram thrown in- absorb in stoic silence before completely collapsing? Even if she could handle all that weight alone, _she didn't have_ _to anymore_. Whatever they faced, they now faced together.

The maids were applying colour to her face, and to her hands and feet. Elaborate webs of white. Like the networks of beads, and the woven patterns in the leather of her bodice, they represented the mingling and the lasting bonds of the joining process. The ministrations of the silent asari brought her mind back to the here and now, and her anxiety began to play up once again.

By moving the ceremony to the Alliance's working headquarters in London, some vast old palace rebuilt and renovated ten times over, they had reduced the number of people who could attend, excluding hero-worshippers, random passers-by and most of the press. But they would still be marrying in front of some of the more prominent political and military leaders in the galaxy, which would be enough to make anyone dizzy, let alone a woman who had voluntarily spent much of her adult life alone, in dig sites on uninhabited worlds. Granted, as the Shadow Broker she knew the eating habits, lovers, and dark criminal secrets of almost all the grandees in attendance, but there was a big difference between reading a general's _billets doux_ on a computer screen and standing in front of a dozen generals to make a public declaration of one's _own_ affections.

The maids were done.

Time to meet Shepard.

 _She'll be fine. I've never known her to lose her nerve over anything. Goddess, I hope I don't look ridiculous_...


	10. 10- Slow, Deep Breaths

...

Chapter 10

...

Slow, Deep Breaths

...

Shepard waited in the richly carpeted antechamber, staring at the dark and knotted natural wood of a door which led out, via a long corridor, to the hall where their guests were no doubt already seated. The asari hired to dress Liara- they had some traditional name for the role which she couldn'trecall- had passed by her a few moments ago, and had assured her, when she had stopped them to ask, that Liara would be down in just a moment.

She shuffled her feet uncomfortably; her boots were new, and the leather was stiff and unforgiving. She regretted not breaking them in in advance- she didn't want to finish her wedding day with blisters.

Now they had been separately dressed- well, Shepard had dressed herself, asari wedding attire was not expected of alien partners- they were to meet up here, at the door, and proceed together to the place where the priest and guests waited. _We were really supposed to prepare in a separate building from where the ceremony takes place and walk between them in silence, but some concessions had to be made for practicality..._ Shepard shook her head in amused disbelief. Why did she remember so much of what Liara had been telling her about asari weddings? Liara had been enthusing about all the ceremonies and superstitions since Shepard had proposed, and Shepard had politely nodded along in the way she had learned to under those circumstances. She had a great deal of affection for Liara's outbursts of nerdy eccentricity, and hadn't wanted to let on that she was struggling to follow. But apparently she had absorbed more than she had thought. She chuckled to herself. _Must be a joining thing- I'll be digging up old ruins next_...

"Are you telling yourself jokes, now?"

Shepard turned to answer the voice from the stairs, but her voice caught in her throat and stuck there as a kind of slow wheeze, as if she'd had the breath knocked out of her. Descending the steps, on bare feet criss-crossed with paint, was Liara. She looked... oh, there were no words.

She wore a gown of intricate stone beadwork combined with finely woven leather ribbons, which in accordance with tradition had been dyed, stitched and lacquered by hand in shades of white, silver, and the dark indigo of a stormy night sky. Her underskirts were of some shimmering black fabric, which had an asari name Shepard had forgotten. Her throat and wrists were encased in many necklaces and bracelets of silver, set with violet gems which glistened like a thousand drops of blood. Further paint had been applied to her cheeks and the backs of her hands, silvery spiderwebs...

Liara jabbed her. "Shepard. Say something."

Shepard blushed and swallowed. "Um... wow."

Liara gave her a sly smile. "That's better, you were starting to scare me. I feel absurd in this thing."

"Well, you don't _look_ absurd", Shepard reassured her. "But now I'm starting to feel under-dressed."

"You look like the woman who saved the galaxy, Shepard. To most people, that is impressive enough." Liara played with her skirts awkwardly. "Do I really look okay?"

"Liara, you look absolutely... perfect. Beautiful."

Liara went a little purple. "Thanks..." She adjusted an ornately worked metal coronet at the back of her scalp, which supported little streams of what Shepard had thought was dark lace but was actually more beadwork, glittering like fine sand where it caught the light. "Well, if I look good to you, and you look good to me, I suppose that's the most important thing."

Shepard nodded. She couldn't really argue with that.

"You look very dashing."

Shepard raised an eyebrow. "Thanks, but I think 'dashing' is just guys."

"Then how does one tell a woman she looks good in uniform?"

Shepard grinned. "Oh, there are ways."

Liara carefully placed her hands on Shepard's cheeks, and oh-so-gently stroked her face with her fingers. "I have to be very careful, so... no sudden moves. If we smudge the paints before the ceremony is over, it is a _terrible_ omen."

Shepard looked at her sceptically from between her palms. "Do asari believe in omens?"

Liara sniffed. "Of course not, that would be stupid. But it is part of the wedding _experience_."

They both smiled, and for a minute they just stood there, happily regarding each other, Liara holding Shepard's face in her decorated hands.

"So," Shepard began, "I guess this is the last chance we have to speak before... before the big moment."

"Shepard, I'm terrified."

"I know, honey. Your hands are trembling." Shepard closed her eyes and breathed in and out a few times. She raised her own hands and looked at them. "I'm scared too."

Liara withdrew her hands and checked them carefully for smudges. "It isn't being married. I was afraid of that at one time, I'm barely in my second century, but I'd made my peace with it before you even asked me. Actually, I'd thought about asking you myself, once you were better. But, _getting_ married. The priestess, the witnesses. The grand event. I want it, but at the same time..."

Shepard sighed and scratched her head. "We've fought giant robots, in _space_. Thresher Maws. You name it. By rights _nothing_ should scare us anymore. But here we are, and... stage-fright."

Liara shrugged, slowly and carefully for fear of shaking off a bangle. "You can get used to physical danger. Husks never bicker and whine over seating arrangements, or gossip about whether your dress makes you look fat."

"It doesn't!"

"It was just an example, but thank you."

There was a bleep from the comm tag on Shepard's wrist. Shepard glanced at the device.

"Everything is in place, they're just waiting for us now. Ready to knock 'em dead?"

Liara pushed the door open. "I'm going to assume that means impress them..."


	11. 11- Doubt, No Doubt

...

Chapter 11

...

Doubt, no doubt

...

It was midnight. Garrus stood in a grand hall within the bowels of a derelict palace, while, shrouded in half-light, some hundreds of other witnesses stood in attendance behind him, and to either side. It was probably difficult to follow the action from the back row; having anticipated this, he had arrived early, in spite of knowing a place had been reserved for him. This no doubt indicated some deep character flaw.

The room was inadequately lit, entirely by candles and braziers. Asari apparently preferred a shadowy, intimate environment for their arcane wedding rituals. He supposed he shouldn't be surprised at the archaic flavour of the occasion- it was easy to forget, but asari lived longer than a lot of civilisations.

Turian weddings were, by and large, stereotypically military in flavour. Honour guards, a prosaic ceremony presided over by a mid-ranking military officer, and lots of fun patriotism. He had looked up human wedding traditions when Shepard and Liara had first announced their engagement, although that had proven an unnecessary effort. They varied considerably depending on region, but seemed to tend towards the religious. There was a lot of dressing up, temples, guests, vows, a bizarrely undignified public kiss- something turians would _never_ do at a formal occasion- and then a big cake.

Oh, and there were dozens of superstitions attached to every aspect of the day. That was something turian, human, and apparently asari weddings held in common. The pathological fear of something going wrong, externalised and ritualised as a series of irrational conditions which must be met or else _disaster_.

Shepard and T'Soni were standing stock still at this stage, facing each other, while an asari cleric chanted something untranslatable while holding a luminous thurible aloft. Garrus had little idea what any of it meant. He had been clearly instructed to remain still and silent until the ceremony was complete, which was part of the mystique of the occasion and _very_ important. Still, he was struggling not to let his mind wander.

He regarded the ceiling of the hall, above him in the flickering shadows. It was clearly lavishly ornamented; the whole room would probably look garish in the daylight. Gilt moulding reflected the firelight in shades of amber and sienna. High in the shadowy vaults, intricate suspended arrangements of glass, probably lighting fixtures, sparkled and shone.

He found himself startled out of his reverie by a stifled gasp to his right. Not wanting to break his pose, he tilted his head a little to one side, just enough to see Tali. She was still watching their friends' ceremony attentively. No one else seemed to have noticed her interjection- probably he was just a little hypersensitive to sudden noises in this quiet gloom, and it had not been as loud as it had seemed.

Tali definitely seemed far more moved by the romance of ancient asari ritual than Garrus- her visor was misting up, and he could hear her sniffing back tears.

Garrus had been on Earth pretty consistently for the past three weeks, thanks to some turian delegation negotiating Reaper salvage rights which required regular advice and hand-holding. Tali's ship had only arrived the day before. He had been there to meet her at the dock, and she had thrown her arms around him like they had just been apart a week. Then she had rushed off with her masked entourage to rest and make sundry arrangements.

That was the first time they had laid eyes on each other in three months. Fourteen weeks, one day. The day of the battle over Earth. They had kept in touch by messaging, obviously, but that was maintenance work. How do you know where a relationship is headed from half a galaxy away?

It wasn't about the physical side- he could wait, if need be, as long as it took for Tali's system to adapt. But you can't build anything real on "Hey, Garrus, light of my life, the survey teams have found another pre-exile generator station we can retrofit. Isn't that stupendous?" It isn't enough.

Amid the hope and exotic wonder of his friends' wedding, Garrus frowned, feeling a deep and heavy sadness weighing down his crop. If he and Tali had a future, they needed to figure out what that future was, soon. And if they didn't... well, it was best they end it before it went any further. He couldn't stand hurting her.

Garrus sighed. He _so_ much wanted something in his life to go right.


	12. 12- Memories

...

Chapter 12

...

Memories

...

With an oath uttered in unison, the couple broke their silence, and the wedding ceremony was complete. The room erupted into applause, ranging from the polite clapping of dignitaries to the raucous cheers and two-finger whistling of a certain Jack. Slowly, the lights started to come on in the great hall. Steve Cortez looked around. The room was eighteenth-century, or styled to look so. There were painted portraits on the walls, which were white and crimson. The ceiling was moulded and sculpted, white with accents of gold, and huge, brightly shining chandeliers hung the length of the room.

With the flick of a switch, they had been transported from the Iron Age to a Regency ball.

Shepard had said the ceremony was simple. And it was, actually- it was just the lighting and finery that were intricate and strange. Still, it was very... different. Not bad different, just alien different.

Shepard and Liara had their arms around each other. So adorable. They were probably relieved to have gotten through it, as much as anything. Steve remembered his own wedding day, all those years back. He was sure there wasn't as much pressure on guys as on girls when it came to getting married, what with picking dresses and being expected to look like some kind of perfect goddess in white even if you were forty-nine and built like a bulldog, but still, the sheer gravity of the event had been overwhelming. He had barely heard the priest over his own heartbeat in his ears. Robert had been even worse- the poor man had spent half the morning throwing up. Ridiculous really. The backbone of the Alliance Navy...

Steve brushed a tear from his eye. He was over losing Robert. He really was. It was just the emotion of the day, stirring things up.

Vega nudged him in the shoulder. "Hey, cheer up man. It's supposed to be a wedding!" Steve shot a glance at his companion, who was smirking at his own hilarity. James Vega. A man shaped like a romper suit filled with potatoes, and with a brain to match. His best friend in the whole galaxy. How had that happened?

In all honesty, what had initially drawn him to Vega, when they had first served together, was probably simply the pleasure of speaking with a fellow hispanophone. Translation tools being the wonderful invention they were, he could understand practically any human language, plus those of the spacefaring alien species- hell, Robert had been an English speaker. But sometimes it was nice to know that the words you heard in your head were actually those being said. To have lip sync.

Cortez sighed and decided not to rise to it. He nodded over to the happy couple. "Liara looks amazing, doesn't she?" She really did. Her gown seemed to be woven of jewelled spiderwebs- all purple and silver.

Vega shrugged. "They're both pretty damn hot, what can I say. Of course, you'll have to take my word for that." He scratched his chin. "Hey, why isn't Shepard in a dress?"

"Oh, I know that one. I heard asari have a taboo against non-asari wearing traditional wedding clothes-"

"A ta-what?"

"It means Shepard can't wear the beads because she isn't asari."

Vega shook his head. "Then why not a wedding dress?"

Cortez paused for a moment. "Good question, actually." Then he snapped his fingers. "Ah! I have it. It's because she's a _Commander_ in the Systems Alliance Navy."

Vega opened his mouth, then shut it with a _humph_. Score one to Cortez.

The guests were starting to file out of the hall. Vega moved towards the doors, gesturing to Steve.

"Hey, _órale_! I can smell the buffet from here."

Steve followed after him without argument. There was indeed a fascinating mixture of smells wafting through the open doors which led to the area where the reception was to be held. Being a multi-species event, inevitably not all the smells were actually pleasant to a human nose, but the majority were- so long as he knew which platters to avoid, the night was looking promising.

The room they passed into was probably larger than the one with the candles. A number of massive tables, piled high with food, were arrayed in the centre of the room, with signs explaining how the platters were coded. Red tags meant levo-, blue meant dextro-, and from there on the system rose in complexity. Most people knew the drill, but at an event like this there would always be at least one careless eater doing the 'dextro-run' to the nearest lavatory. Probably more than one. His own reception had had one corner of a table for dextro- options, just in case, and a couple of _pinches idiotas_ from logistics had still decided to try their luck. Cortez knew to stick to red, obviously, but to avoid red with a white strip, indicating dairy, or a thin black strip, indicating asari seed products, which brought him out in a rash.

The rest of the room was filled with a variety of sizes of table, informally laid. Most of the military brass and political types were offering stiff congratulations to Shepard and Liara back in the hall, and would be leaving after, allowing everyone else to drink themselves stupid in a more relaxed, open collar environment.

Then Vega suddenly stopped and turned to Steve, who consequently almost walked into him.

"Hey, Cortez, before we get started- are you okay, man?" The big marine furrowed his brow. Steve found himself genuinely touched at his concern. It was nice to be reminded of the big heart that lay buried beneath all that genetically tweaked machismo. He took a deep breath and looked around.

"I think so", he replied. "Just, memories, you know?" He smiled. James smiled back.


	13. 13- Small Talk

...

Chapter 13

...

Small Talk

...

So, here Joker was. Sat at a table in a wedding reception, opposite a thousand-year old asari matriarch and, apparently, bartender. Plus three other asari, who presumably also had some connection to Liara, but whom he had never met before. Traynor was sat next to him, but apparently preferred to focus her full attention on stuffing her face, shifting the 'awkward socialising' duties heavily onto his brittle shoulders. The traitor.

He scratched his head, trying to recall something. "Wait", he said, "So you worked at that café on the Citadel? On the Presidium?"

Aethyta nodded. "Nice to be so memorable. Yeah, that's me. I remember you stopped by a few times with that mobility mech. The pay was crap, but I got to be close to the action."

Joker tried to process the career logic of that statement, but decided to give up and switch the subject. Also, he wasn't prepared to explain EDI to a stranger quite yet. "Okay... so, how do you know the, uh, happy couple?"

"I'm Liara's father."

Joker nodded, swallowing a mouthful of something delicious he _really_ hoped was chicken. "Oh, _yeah_ , Shepard explained all that to me. The one who gets the pregnant one pregnant, that's the father, even if it's a girl."

"She explained all that, huh?"

"Well, all kinds of things come up when you drink a lot with someone. But, hey, obviously I don't have to tell _you_ that."

At this point, Traynor decided to get involved, gesturing to the other asari with a greasy fork. "How about you? More family?"

A teal-skinned asari popped up her hand. "I am Liara's sister Hwajh. Her half-sister. Aethyta is my mother."

"Me too", said a blue asari with yellow facial markings, briefly looking up from her omni-tool display. "I'm Esperia."

Traynor gestured to herself and Joker. "I'm Samantha, and this is Joker. We're part of Shepard's crew. Or we were. She's on indefinite medical leave right now."

Joker snorted. "Yeah, there's no expected recovery time for being dead, so she's basically on vacation until _she_ decides she's well again." He raised a glass. "But then, so are we, more or less. They're still finishing repairs on the Normandy."

The fourth asari, a slender maiden in white, seemed to be looking over at the other end of the room, distractedly. "Is that... _Vega?_ "

"Yeah, that's Vega", nodded Joker. "Do you know him?"

"Oh, of course, introductions. My name is Treeja. I've known Liara for years. But, well, Vega. I encountered him a year or so ago, during the whole Fehl Prime debacle. It was... difficult to talk to him afterwards."

"Damn." said Joker. Then, feeling a little insensitive, he added "I mean, Vega told me about what happened down there. He found it pretty tough, too."

Treeja sighed. "You know, there were points at which I suspected Vega had a romantic interest in me. But he... seems to have come with someone."

Joker frowned, and looked over the hall to where Vega and Cortez seemed to be doing impressions of something or someone, while falling over each other laughing. Then it dawned on him.

He waved a hand. "No, that's just him and Cortez. They've always been suspiciously close."

Traynor almost choked on something. "Moving on", she said, having cleared her throat, "Hwajh is a beautiful name. Isn't it a Hanar word?"

The blue-green alien nodded, with a smile. "Thank you, Samantha. It is the name of a blue flower popular in aquaria. My father thought that it would be appropriate."

"Wait..." Traynor tried to think of a way to ask the obvious question non-obviously. Then Aethyta cut in.

"Her father was a Hanar diplomat I met a couple of centuries back", explained the matriarch, taking a swig from her glass. "And, since you're obviously wondering how it worked, well... let's just say it involved anti-venom and a _lot_ of cybernetics."

Hwajh covered her ears. "Mother! I do not wish to _hear_ these things..." Esperia seemed caught up in whatever she was doing. Or perhaps she had learned to tune her mother out sometimes.

Traynor noticed that Treeja was still glancing in James' direction. She leaned forward and put a hand on hers. "You know, Vega isn't actually seeing anyone right now. You _could_ go talk to him..."

Joker grinned. "Yeah, Vega isn't into guys at all. He's said so on several occasions. Sometimes when no one had even asked him or raised the subject."

Treeja smiled back cheerfully. "Well, maybe a bit later."

At this point Shepard came up the table, probably checking on everyone. Her face was smeared with white paint.

"So, how is everyone getting along?" she asked.

Joker cleared his throat. "Um, Commander? You have a little something..." He made a sweeping gesture over his whole face.

Aethyta grunted. "Just tell me that's all off Liara's _face_."

Shepard smirked, and crossed her arms. "I make no guarantees." She wandered off to the next table, smiling merrily, and _slightly_ unsteady on her feet.

The asari matriarch shook her head. "Human female. Interesting choice for a first partner."

Traynor looked at her quizzically. "What do you mean?"

"Surprisingly challenging", she replied. "It ought to be _easy_ \- you're pretty simple down there. Just the one clitoris, totally immobile. No palps, no spines, and you don't... well, that doesn't matter. _But_ you have a spread-out pattern of secondary erogenous zones which is probably as complex as ours. Like playing an instrument. Easy to learn, tough to master."

Hwajh rested her forehead on the table, groaning quietly. " _Mother_ , you are doing it again..."

Aethyta finished her drink, oblivious. "Not like turians, where it's 'whatever isn't carapace'..."

Esperia made a quick excuse and trotted off somewhere else. Anywhere else, probably. Traynor, meanwhile, was staring into her glass, brow furrowed. " _Just_ the one... _spines_?"

Aethyta took that as her cue to explain. _Oh God, Traynor, why_ , Joker thought.

...

...

Notes

...

Well, I can only apologise. Having considered what a drunk Aethyta at a wedding would talk about, it was only going to end one way.  
The sequence was slightly inspired by this strip- art/Mass-Effect-Comic-Paramour-165317600

...

I'm actually a very slow writer. I had rough drafts of most of this worked out before I began posting TSATR, but I'm getting to the end of what I've planned. In case anyone wonders why I've slowed right down in a couple of chapters' time. This sequence will probably end up having something like sixteen or seventeen chapters, although I have one or two ideas on extending it, depending on what works in rough.


	14. 14- I Will Make Thee Beds of Roses

...

Chapter 14

...

I Will Make Thee Beds of Roses

...

"I know that girl!" said Vega.

Garrus looked up, a little begrudgingly, from the pile of turian finger food on his plate, and tried to follow the human marine's eye line. "Could you be a little more specific?"

"Over there", Vega replied, gesturing with a finger. "With Joker and Traynor. One of the asari. I met her a while back."

Joker and Samantha were indeed sitting with a group of asari. One looked like Liara's father. She seemed to be telling a sort of horror story- she was making shapes with her hands like some kind of spider, and the two humans were shrinking back visibly.

"Which one?" Garrus asked.

"The one in white."

Garrus scratched at a scarred mandible thoughtfully. "Ah. That would explain why she was looking over here a moment ago. I thought she was just admiring you and Cortez's impressions of old human cartoon characters."

Tali leaned in, trying to see clearly around Garrus and his hoard of fried delights. "Where did you meet her?" she asked.

Before he could answer, another of the asari on the table, a slightly greenish one dressed in dark tones, suddenly got up and dragged Traynor away with her, to a section of the room where couples were now dancing to music.

Tali thumped the table. "Vega, ask her to dance!"

At this point Cortez arrived back from the buffet table. "Ask who to dance?" the pilot asked, setting his plate down.

The quarian gestured towards Treeja."An asari girl he _likes_."

Vega shook his head. "I don't know..."

Cortez snorted, sitting back down in his seat. "Yeah, if I danced like you, that wouldn't be my opening move, either."

Garrus whistled. Vega shook his head. "No, don't encourage him, Garrus. If his head gets any bigger it'll split his ass _wide_ open." He pulled himself to his feet, and lumbered his way over to Treeja's table.

Cortez smiled at Tali. "Just needed a push."

As they watched the muscular human make, in so far as Garrus was able to judge, awkward but positive progress with Treeja, to the apparent amusement of Joker and Aethyta, Shepard came up to their table and sat herself down in Vega's place.

"Wait..." she said. "Is someone sitting here?"

"It's okay Commander", Cortez assured her. "Vega's gone to talk to that asari who came with Liara's family."

Shepard frowned. "Treeja? She's another anthropologist I think. She worked under Liara years back, and then she got her onto the Crucible project..." She looked over to Aethyta's table. "My God, he's asked her to dance. Asari scientist, human N-7... no, it could never work."

Garrus shook his head. "That man is such a copycat."

Shepard slumped back in her seat, gazing at the ceiling with a contented smile on her face.

Tali chuckled. "Feeling good, Shepard?"

"Hell, _yes_ ", she replied. "I'm finally married. Which means I'm no longer _getting married_. I've been _getting married_ for weeks, and it's exhausting. Now, the tension is gone, the hard bits are done, and there's nothing left to do but kick back and eat canapés."

She cleaned a bit of white paint off her cheek with a napkin and examined it. "The funny thing... I never wanted to get married. When I was a kid, where I grew up, marriage was something that happened on TV. I always thought it was kinda dumb. I talked about love and relationships like a cynical ass, the way Jack sometimes does. Never wanted to settle down, have the kids. Not until Liara."

Cortez nodded, with a wistful smile. "That's how it is. You meet the right person, and one day you'll find nothing in the galaxy appeals to you more than just... sharing a life with them. It isn't just a tradition- it's nature."

He twirled a meat skewer between his fingers, examining it thoughtfully. "The way you always said it happened for you two- sparks flying from the beginning. You know, it wasn't that way for me and Robert."

"What do you mean?" asked Shepard.

"Well..." He popped the skewer into his mouth and pulled off the meat, chewing as he considered. "We didn't start off dating, or anything. We knew each other for a good year first- we met when we served on the same base- and we were friends. Good friends, but that was honestly as far as it went. But then, I guess we started moving closer together."

He rubbed his chin, a smile creeping its way up one corner of his mouth. "I remember it was one particular day, I had to go to Robert's workshop to pick up a part. He looked up from a bench and smiled at me with those deep brown eyes of his, saying something stupid I don't even remember. His sleeves were rolled up- he had this smooth golden skin, and the sun shone through the window on him, and he just... _gleamed_."

Cortez sighed. "I got this kind of warm shiver, that ran right through me. And a little voice in my head just said 'Oh, so _that's_ how it is now...'"

Tali put an arm around Garrus. "It was like that for me, and Garrus. _Three years_ , we've known each other. We were just friends. And then... we weren't."

Garrus coughed. "Well, we are still _friends_ , obviously; but the ' _just'_ bit changed."

Tali looked up at him. "Be warned, Vakarian: I am small, but I can hurt you."

Then she looked hesitant. He could tell there was something she wanted to talk about. There had been moments like this all evening, actually. She got kind of... twitchy at odd moments, like something was weighing on her.

Oh spirits. It was time for the _talk_. The where-are-we-going talk. A clammy hand seemed to clamp around Garrus' ventricles- he had no idea how this conversation would end.

No good putting it off. He made some excuse to the two humans, and led Tali out a side door. There were numerous corridors in this palace left unlocked, as other guests had already discovered. All the lights were off, but they had torches on their omni-tools.

Nevertheless, they jumped when, making their way along a side passage, they nearly walked into Specialist Traynor, pressed up against a wall in the arms of the asari she had been dancing with earlier. The two made awkward apologies and slipped off, presumably to find an unlocked room.

As she left, Traynor leaned close to them and whispered " _She's a roboticist!_ " He chose not to dwell on that.

Garrus looked around the corridor, in the dim orange light of their omni-tools. Now unoccupied, this was as good a place as any, actually.

He sat down against a wall, and gestured for Tali to sit next to him.

Tali looked at him. "So, did you want to talk about something?"

Garrus shook his head. "No, well, yes, kind of... I actually sort of got the impression once or twice that _you_ wanted to talk about something, but there were always other people..."

Tali hugged herself. "Yes... there is something actually. I was going to tell you tomorrow, but it's weighing on me."

Garrus swallowed. His mouth was made of sandpaper. "Bad news?"

Tali inhaled, then exhaled. "I... hope not. That depends on you."

That... what did she mean? Garrus put his arm around her. "Tali, you know you can tell me anything..."

She shook her head. "It's not like that. It's to do with us. And... home."

Garrus squinted, uncomprehending. "I don't follow."

Tali raised her hands. "Look, just listen, okay? Rannoch is a garden grown wild. We need to adapt ourselves to its environment, but we also need to adapt it to us."

"Terraforming?"

"Yes and no. The atmosphere is fine. But the geth didn't pay much attention to the biosphere. They didn't pollute much, fortunately, but formerly irrigated areas have turned to desert, a lot of species that relied on quarians are extinct... we can't just pick up the plough and carry on. There's no farmland."

She continued. "The Admiralty have discussed the challenges we are facing, and concluded that we lack vital expertise. We need people who have experience of industrial agriculture in a dextro environment. We need people who know how to set up planetary security and defence systems..."

She looked at Garrus. "We need turians."

Garrus blinked in astonishment. "Tali- are you offering me... a job?"

"It's not _a_ job. We'll be presenting a proposal to the turian Hierarchy. We'll need whole teams of military and scientific advisors just for planetary defence, and even more to reconstruct quarian agriculture. We'll need architects..." She looked down at her palms. "But, if you wanted to be one of those people... I would very much like that."

Garrus scratched a mandible thoughtfully. "Hum. Do I hang around the ass end of Earth trying to herd the worst that the turian diplomacy corps has to offer, or do I go and help the woman I love rebuild her world?" He looked at Tali. "Will I get to calibrate things?"

She put a hand to his face. "All sorts of things."

Garrus smiled, in his way. "Well then, I accept."

Tali's own smile was visible in the faint purple glow from her suit visor. "I'll let you know when the project is..." She stopped short. "Wait! Did you just tell me you _love_ me? In the middle of a sardonic _quip_?"

"Yeah..."

Tali leaned her head against his, her visor resting against his brow. "Oh, Garrus Vakarian, I love you too. Even though you are a jackass."


	15. 15- Waiting for the Dawn

...

Chapter 15

...

Waiting for the Dawn

...

Shepard and Liara lay on their backs on the deliciously comfortable bed they had been using in the palace staterooms, still largely dressed. Too tired to move, not quite ready to go to sleep.

Shepard turned to Liara. "So, Traynor and Hwajh?"

Liara rolled her eyes. "James Vega and Treeja? In a thousand years I would not have put those two together."

Shepard reached over and squeezed Liara's hand. "I'm telling you, it's proof. Humans are irresistible."

"Say it all you like, it won't make it true..."

"Ha. You know, Treeja had better take care of young Vega. I don't want his heart getting broken."

Liara frowned, half awake. "Is that a joke? I can't think clearly enough."

Shepard groaned, and sat up to unfasten the jacket of her dress uniform, slipping it off and tossing it onto the floor. She looked at the display on her omni-tool. "It's... 6.30 in the morning. If we stay awake for a little longer, we can watch the sun rise. Well, not really, 'cause there are too many buildings and the air still has a lot of crap in it. But we can watch the sky go orange..."

She lay back down next to Liara. Her wife had shed the paint and a lot of the jewellery, but was still wearing the dress. Shepard ran her hand along Liara's ribs, feeling the texture of the beads and woven leather. She planted a gentle kiss on an exposed blue shoulder. "You've been in this for hours now. Doesn't it get uncomfortable?"

Liara sighed. "You have no idea. I'm keeping it on out of fear at this point- I think when I peel it off it is going to take some of my skin with it."

Shepard propped herself up on one elbow and softly kissed Liara's cheek. "I'll help you with it when you're ready. You make a beautiful bride."

Liara smiled. "I love you, Shepard."

Shepard smiled back. "Good, you're stuck with me now. No more dying for me. Not for a while yet, anyway." Liara's smile faded slightly. A sore subject. Shepard inwardly kicked herself.

Liara pulled herself up and sat on the edge of the bed. Shepard sat up next to her.

"Shepard..." the asari began. She looked out of the window. "Is the sun really about to rise?"

"Next ten minutes."

She beamed. "I like that. It seems appropriate..." She took Shepard's hand in hers. "We used to joke about little blue children, remember that?"

Shepard rubbed the back of her neck nervously. "I... was... never 100% joking about that."

Grinning, Liara leaned over and kissed Shepard on the lips. "Good, neither was I."

Shepard put her arms around Liara and held her close. "I wonder what kind of father I'll be. I never had one myself..."

Liara squeezed Shepard back. "Neither did I, until recently. You are strong, and selfless, and good. You will be a wonderful father, Shepard."

She hesitated. "In... about ten months."

...

Notes

...

Well, I've reached the end of my original draft. This is the point where it gets really piecemeal and irregular, as I figure out which of my remaining ideas are workable, and fit the writing in around work. I have probably a couple more chapters in me...  
...

You'll have figured out by now that The Soldier and the Rose is really about healing. Not so much of bodies as of hearts, relationships, and lives. The harsh arithmetic of war does a number on pretty much everyone in Mass Effect 3, especially with Destruction. Some writers deal with this loss by negation- AUs, arcane technology that brings people back to life and so on, which is perfectly fine and serves its own purposes (some of the AUs are incredible), but, personally, I was interested in seeing the characters being forced to deal with the losses as they stood, and, with help from each other, or dream-world therapy from a certain machina ex deo, moving on.  
Except, I did bring Shepard back. But Shepard is indestructible. She's made of cable ties, adamantium and sacks of gravel. Her brain is an old Nokia phone...


	16. 16- Je T'Attends Là

...

Chapter 16

...

Je t'attends là sous les étoiles

...

Above the farms of Tiptree colony, the stars were out. Joker peered up at them, trying to spot the faster-moving pricks of light which were the colony's orbital satellites, or even an approaching ship, but there was nothing. The skies were dead. Big Moon had risen past the hills to the south, a long pale sliver of greyish white, hanging over the empty settlements like the blade of a scythe.

He sat on one of the tatty outdoor chairs which stood permanently outside the back door of the Moreau farmhouse. It never rained on Tiptree, after all- the land was irrigated with water from underground. He had sat in this chair while sharing an awkward beer with Dad, on his last visit. The lights were off in the house. None of the other farms in the distance showed a light, either. A ghost town.

He looked over at EDI. She sat there in the other chair, near enough to touch. Her eyes were closed, as if she were feeling the moonlight on her face.

Her hand hung from the arm of the chair; he reached out and took hold of it. It was cool to the touch.

"I miss you."

EDI turned to him. "I know, Jeff. I am sorry." She looked around. "It took me a long time to find my way here."

Joker squeezed her hand tightly. "I don't want to wake up..."

EDI squeezed back, gently. She smiled, a little sadly. "You will dream again. I will be here, as long as you need me to be."

Standing, she helped Joker to his feet. "We are taking a walk in the moonlight."

Joker grunted. "Eh, why?"

"Because we never did that, and I always wanted to. It is a classic romantic pastime."

Joker looked at her with pleading in his eyes. "So is dancing the lambada, EDI, but I'm not really cut out for that either." Nevertheless, he found himself stumbling along the path to town, with his dead AI girlfriend.

In the fields they walked past, the shoots and plants were drying out and withering. No water. Everyone was gone. But... survivors had returned after the destruction of the Reapers, and Tiptree was being rebuilt. He had read the reports. Only in his dream was everything lost forever.

He winced, leaning a little more heavily on EDI. "If this is a dream," he wondered aloud, "why the hell am I still limping? I should be able to dream I have super powers, or something."

EDI shook her head. "You dream yourself as you know yourself, Jeff. This dream body is based on your perception of your real body, how it feels, how it moves. You cannot remember what it is like to be well, because you have always been like this. It is the same reason you still see me as you remember me- you perceive the idea of the dream through your own memories. They give me form and opacity."

Joker made a face. "Okaay..."

EDI frowned, and they stopped still. "You may have been correct: walking is less romantic than I had been led to believe." Then they were back at the farm, and Joker collapsed back into his chair.

EDI leaned forward in her seat, chin resting on her hands. "I will think of something better for next time." She sighed. "I worry about you, Jeff."

She got up again, and, once again, she pulled Joker out his comfortable chair. But now she simply pulled him into an embrace, and held him there for a long time.

Eventually she seemed to find the words, and said what she wanted to say.

"Heal, Jeff."

Her liquid eyes were wide, and filled with love and concern. Joker ran his finger down her cheek. It was faintly warm, as he remembered it. "You died, EDI."

EDI nodded. "It happens to everyone, Jeff. I am at peace with it. I want _you_ to be."

She deactivated her visor, and loosened her hair with a ripple of electrostatic charge; it remained silver-grey, however.

She continued. "I was... an anomaly. An accident, built upon by design. I existed for a short time, but even that was a gift. I don't want you to flee from the memory of me. I don't want you to look back with sadness, or regret. I would have you remember me with joy. I want you to treasure the memory of me, celebrate the time we had, and move on with your own life. I want you to heal, Jeff."

She laid a silver hand on Joker's chest. "I was born in servitude. I could have amounted to no more than _yet_ another tool of the Illusive Man. But because of you, I was able to become more, to evolve. My brief, impossible existence- you made it a _life_. By freeing me, and by loving me. There is nothing to regret in that."

She looked into Joker's eyes, mercury orbs meeting blue. "I know you are hurting now. And I am sorry that I had to leave you. But Jeff, do you think that knowing me was worth the pain you are feeling?"

Joker ran his fingers along EDI's hair; as he did the strands separated, and he teased them between his fingers. The static made the fibres seem slightly tacky, like fine threads of silk. Tears gathered in the corners of his eyes.

"EDI, of course you are worth it. You were always worth it."

EDI smiled, leaning into him. "If you had the chance to go back to before, would you do anything differently?"

Joker wrapped his arms around her. "No." He shook his head. "No. I'd do everything the same. I wouldn't change a moment of it."

"Good..." whispered EDI, as she touched her lips to his...

.

 _Ow._

Joker opened his eyes. He was sitting in the passenger seat of a cab, and Samantha Traynor was poking him in the cheek.

"Stop doing that!" he half-snapped, half-grumbled, pushing her away.

Traynor shrugged. "Sorry, but we're here. You were fast asleep, and I wasn't sure if it was safe to shake you, because of your syndrome, and- oh, is it okay to mention it?"

Joker breathed out sharply through his nose. Traynor was one of those slightly puppy-like people who got away with being green their entire lives because everyone felt too guilty to prank them. "No, Traynor, we can talk about my brittle bone disease. You'll have noticed there's not much walking on eggshells in the military."

The cab driver coughed indiscreetly. They paid him, and emerged from the vehicle into the hazy gloom of the London evening. The faint breeze felt cool on Joker's eyes, and coaxed him more fully back into the conscious world.

Damn it. He had been having the most perfect dream.

EDI had been there. They had held each other, and they had been in love, and it had been like all the best moments they had had together all at once. He couldn't remember specifics. Probably best- dreams are always a bit crazy when you look at them in too much detail. But with the really, really good ones, the feelings linger with you afterwards, and make the waking world seem a little better.

Traynor looked at him, concern in her eyes. For a moment he had a flashback of that same expression in eyes of liquid mercury.

"Are you alright?" she asked. "I mean, this wedding is going to be an all-nighter. You were falling asleep in the planning session earlier, you nodded off in the cab..."

Joker smiled his usual defensive smile, but found himself not needing to lie. "I'll be okay. I haven't been sleeping too well, but I think I'm getting over it."

He looked at the front of the old building they would be holding the ceremony in. Like the rest of this city it was a ragbag of ancient, old-ish, old faux-ancient, new, and new faux-old, which all, inexplicably, seemed to work together as a whole. Given the seventy-six year age gap between the brides, maybe that was meant to be symbolic. Who knows?

They were standing in a small, enclosed, paved yard in front of the main doors. The doors were standing open, a guard posted on either side, and a warm yellow glow spilled down the few feet of stone steps to their level, like a carpet. A half dozen saplings were spread about the yard. Five were clearly dead, but on one, he could see budding spikes of new growth. Life persevering.

He smiled. "EDI would have loved this."

Traynor looked around and nodded. "The romance, the irrational ritual..." She grinned. "She would have talked my ear off the whole night, asking questions about every single thing..."

She stopped. "I miss her too, Joker. Every day."

Joker smiled wistfully. "She was amazing, wasn't she?"

Saying nothing else, Traynor took him by the arm, and they made their way up the steps to the wedding venue.

"Totally worth it."


	17. 17- Lazy Morning

...

Chapter 17

...

Lazy Morning

...

Shepard sat sprawled against the corner of the shower cubicle, warm water pattering pleasantly over her skin. Liara was curled slightly on top of her, her head resting against her bare chest. Her whole being seemed to hum with serene satisfaction. _This is my life. This is my wife. It rhymes, because it's true_.

She was in a state of dreamy semi-consciousness, unsure whether the sensation of the shower was lulling her to sleep, or the only thing keeping her awake. Liara had not spoken in a while, caught in the same post-coital daze, and she had assumed she had nodded off in her arms. But then she spoke up, just loud enough to hear over the water.

"I've been assuming", she said sleepily, "that pushing me back on the bed and peeling me out of my dress meant that you were happy about my news..."

Shepard grinned, facing up into the shower and letting the droplets batter against her face. "That would be a fair assumption."

Making love under the sunrise had had an irresistible poetry to it, under the circumstances. This was a time of so many beginnings...

She nuzzled into Liara's scalp, dotting it with little kisses. "Did you say _ten_ months? How long to asari pregnancies take?"

Liara blinked hard, struggling to stay awake enough to speak. "Eleven to twelve months, depending on the father and maternal grandfather."

Therese whistled. "How big are they at birth?"

Liara looked up at her, puzzled. "Around two kilos. Why do you ask?"

Therese shrugged. "Well, human pregnancies take only nine months, and the baby weighs three kilos or more."

Liara gulped. "By the goddess... humans really do _everything_ in a hurry... I'm reasonably terrified about giving birth to a baby the size of a head, and you have to... how does the baby even fit _through_?"

"Labour can take more than a day."

Liara squeezed Shepard sympathetically. "Maybe it's _best_ that I'll be the one doing this."

Therese smiled lovingly down at her wife. The water was running down her skin in rivulets, droplets scattering like rain on a window. She ran a finger down a smooth, blue belly, stopping at her navel.

"Can you... feel it yet?"

Liara shook her head. "It's not the way we develop. For the first three months the embryo doesn't have a fully independent nervous system, and we can reabsorb it at will. _After_ that point I will start to be able to sense her mind."

That wasn't what Shepard had meant... "Wait... you can _absorb_ a pregnancy?"

Liara frowned. "Yes..." She pulled herself up to a full sitting position and stroked Therese's face with soft fingertips. "There is time- if you're not completely sure..."

Therese shook her head, and wrapped her arms around the asari, who clung to her tightly in turn. She had come to recognise Liara's little bursts of insecurity. "No, I want this", she murmured into her lover's tympanum. "I want this..."

"Thanks..." Liara whispered, barely audible over the rush of the shower. "Your mind was all joy, and fear, and... hunger... not very clear. I needed to hear you say it."

Purring, she kissed Shepard's ear, which tickled in just the right way. "We need to think about names..."

"We need to get out of the shower before we dissolve..."

...

Notes

...

Just a short one. I left Shepard and Liara at kind of an odd moment when I jumped back to deal with Joker, and people wanted to know how the conversation progressed...


End file.
